Announcements

We are pleased to announce that the winner of the 2018 Young Investigator Award, sponsored by MDPI and Molecules, is Dr Paul McGonigal.

Dr. Paul McGonigal (b 1985) received his undergraduate (MChem, 2007) and postgraduate (PhD, 2010) degrees from The University of Edinburgh, working under the direction of Prof David Leigh. In 2011, he moved to The Institute of Chemical Research of Catalonia (ICIQ), Spain, as a Postdoctoral Researcher in the laboratory of Prof Antonio Echavarren. The following year, he was awarded a US–UK Fulbright Scholarship to conduct research with Prof Fraser Stoddart’s research group at Northwestern University. His training encompassed topics ranging from molecular machines, homogeneous catalysis, and natural product synthesis to nanoparticle functionalization and metal–organic frameworks.

In 2015, Paul moved to Durham University to take up the position of Assistant Professor of Organic Chemistry where he investigates new small-molecule motifs for functional materials by taking advantage of unusual interactions, reactivity, and dynamics. In the past three years, his team has investigated the effects of excited-state aromatic interactions in phenyl-ring molecular rotors, synthesized new functional carbocation materials, and developed strategies to control shapeshifting molecules. As well as providing new fundamental insights, the materials developed by McGonigal are targeted towards applications as components of optoelectronic devices. Paul is being awarded the 2018 Molecules Young Investigator Award for his creative early-career contributions to organic and supramolecular chemistry.

Dr. Derek J. McPhee
Editor-in-Chief, Molecules

MDPI will be attending the 26th meeting of the North American Catalysis Society (NAM 26), to be held in Chicago, USA, 23-28 June 2019.

The 26th meeting of the North American Catalysis Society, NAM26, is the premier scientific event in the field of catalysis research and development in 2019. It will feature technological challenges, breakthrough discoveries, and state-of-the art academic and industrial research.

The following MDPI journals will be represented:

• Catalysts
• Materials
• Energies
• Processes
• Molecules
• Inorganics
• Nanomaterials

If you are also attending this conference, please feel free to stop by our booth (Booth #108). Our delegates look forward to meeting you in person to answer any questions you may have. For more information about the conference, please visit: https://isen.northwestern.edu/nam262019-north-american-catalysis-society-meeting

In November 2018, the International Society of Heterocyclic Chemistry (ISHC) became affiliated to Molecules. As part of this collaboration, all members of ISHC enjoy a discount on the article processing charges (APC) when submitting articles to Molecules.

The International Society of Heterocyclic Chemistry (ISHC) was established in August, 1968, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in the USA by Dr. Raymond N. Castle (1916-1999). The function of the society is to promote heterocyclic chemistry, in particular by serving as the primary sponsoring agency for the ISHC-Congress, a large biennial meeting attracting up to a thousand participants. Further aims of the ISHC are to honor persons who have made outstanding contributions to the field with two distinguished Awards and the appointment of ISHC Fellows. The ISHC is also actively involved in the publication of “Progress in Heterocyclic Chemistry” (PHC) a major reference work on heterocyclic chemistry published annually since 1989.

ISHC is a professional organization whose functions are highly relevant to the scope of Molecules. We look forward to collaborating with ISHC and publishing state-of-the-art research from its members in this field.

We are pleased to welcome more universities from Poland, Italy, Germany, Brazil and other parts of the world to MDPI's Institutional Open Access Program (IOAP). A warm welcome to the institutions listed below, who have joined the Program in February and March this year.

Authors affiliated with these institutions can now enjoy a discount on the APC for papers accepted for publication in any MDPI journal. If you would like to learn more about our program, please visit: https://www.mdpi.com/about/ioap or email us at ioap@mdpi.com.

We will be attending the ACS 2019 National Meeting & Exposition. It is an interdisciplinary forum open to anyone with an interest in chemistry and related disciplines. Representatives of the following open access journals will attend:

Biomolecules
Catalysts
Diagnostics
Fibers
Inorganics
Materials
Membranes
Micromachines
Molbank
Molecules
Pharmaceuticals
Processes

If you are also attending this conference, please feel free to stop by our booth (Booth #1123). Our delegates look forward to meeting you in person to answer any questions you may have. For more information about the conference, please visit: https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/meetings/national-meeting.html

We are delighted to announce our participation in Jisc’s Publication Router project, as of March 2019.

Publications Router is a Jisc service that automatically sends notifications about research articles to institutions' systems such as their repositories or CRISs, since May 2015. Through this agreement, MDPI will provide Jisc with daily feeds and information regarding published articles, which will be gathered by their system and delivered to institutions also registered to this service. Nearly all of our articles are published within 15 days of acceptance, so institutions will receive them quite promptly.

The feed will include the full text of the published version of record, with no embargo, so the articles can be exposed immediately for public view. They are accompanied by rich metadata, including confirmation of the immediate CC BY licence, minimising the need for any manual intervention or checking.

For more information about Publications Router, you may contact Jisc’s central helpdesk at help@jisc.ac.uk. For any queries about MDPI’s institutional agreements and collaborations, you may get in touch with MDPI’s Institutional Engagement team at ioap@mdpi.com, which would be very happy to hear from further UK institutions.

Once over 10 papers have been received for this Special Issue, one of the published papers will be selected to receive an SI Best Paper Award by an Evaluation Committee.

Eligibility for the Award:

• Paper published within the Special Issue: Noncovalent Interactions and Supramolecular Complex Formation
• Original research articles and reviews will be considerd

Selection Criteria:

The papers will be selected by the Guest Editor and invited panel members from the Macrocyclic and Supramolecular Chemistry meeting (2019) organising committee, according to the following criteria:

• Originality and novelty
• Career stage
• Importance of work to the supramolecular community

Prize Details:

The award will consist of a certificate and an invitation for the corresponding authour to present their work at the Macrocyclic and Supramolecular Chemistry meeting 2019, to be held at the University of Kent (UK) on the 16th–17th of December 2019. Funding of up 400 Swiss Francs will also be provided to support travel to and accommodation at the conference. It has also been agreed that the conference registration fee for the recipient of this award also be waived by the conference organisers. To be the recipient of this award, the author must be free to attend the Macrocyclic and Supramolecular Chemistry meeting detailed above.

Timeline:

The submission deadline is 1 August 2019. The issue will be closed at the end of October. The successful applicant will be notified by the 15th of November 2019.

Rigorous peer-review is the cornerstone of high quality academic publishing. Over 97,000 scholars served as reviewers for MDPI journals in 2018. We are extremely appreciative of all those who made a contribution to the editorial process in this capacity. At the beginning of every year, journal editorial offices publish a list all reviewers’ names to express our gratitude. In addition, this year the “MDPI Top Reviewer Awards” are announced, to recognize the very best reviewers for their expertise, dedication, high quality, and timely review reports. We are pleased to announce the following winners of the 2018 MDPI Top Reviewer Awards:

• Ali Behnood
• Andrea Pezzuolo
• Angela Gorgoglione
• Anna D'Auria
• Antonio D'Andrea
• Azhar Abbas
• Bogdan Zagajewski
• Chunhui Chen
• Dominika Głąbska
• Dominika Guzek
• Dragan Pamucar
• Francisco J. G. Silva
• Frank Li
• Gianluca Serafini
• Gyorgy Szekely
• Haozhi Pan
• Helvi Heinonen-Tanski
• José Manuel Gómez-Soberón
• Kathy Lewis
• Klara Kosova
• Luis N. López De Lacalle
• M. Z. Naser
• Malwina Tytła
• Masoume Amirkhani
• Matteo Ghidelli
• Moretti Laura
• Petra Schneider
• Roberto Cerchione
• Spyros Papaefthymiou
• Ştefan Cristian Gherghina

Since 2010, MDPI has run its own online submission system. More recently, we have made the software, with accompanying publishing services, available to other publishers as JAMS (Journal and Article Management System). We are now delighted to announce the launch of JAMS Journals, a standardized platform for operating open access journals at low cost.

JAMS Journals provides a comprehensive service, including a shared submission website, journal websites hosted at a URL provided by the publisher, and a full production service. There is a small setup fee and the cost for each published paper is just a few hundred Swiss francs.

The platform demonstrates that running an open access journal can be straightforward and affordable. The JAMS Journals platform is suitable for

• small publishers or groups of scholars looking to launch their own journal;
• existing publishers or societies seeking to explore open access options;
• publishers looking to convert an existing subscription journal to open access.

JAMS journals launches with two journals from Canadian-based publisher Etcetera Publications:

• Canadian Journal of Pesticides & Pest Management (http://www.cjppm.ca)
• Nanotechnology in Agriculture, Food & Environment (http://www.nanoafe.ca)

Dr AJ Al-Rajab (President of Etcetera Publications) comments:

“In the past few months, we were working on our project to launch new open access scientific journals in the field of agricultural and environmental sciences. We decided to go with JAMS for this venture because of the high quality of their services, reasonable prices, professionalism and easy communication. Our portfolio is expected to grow rapidly during 2019 to include more titles covering different areas in agriculture and environment. MDPI earned already our complete satisfaction and we are looking for a long term cooperation.”

Alongside the new platform, we continue to provide flexible, tailored journal management solutions for existing publishers. For any questions or to request a quotation, contact Dr. Constanze Schelhorn (constanze.schelhorn@mdpi.com).

2018 was a great year for preprints, with increasing numbers of authors looking to make their papers available online before peer review. Along with other preprint servers, our platform Preprints.org  saw an increase in the uptake from authors, and more than double the number of announced papers compared to 2017. In fact, we recently passed two important milestones: 8000 preprints online and 30,000 authors. 

We believe that the whole research community has the opportunity to benefit from work being available online as early as possible. We thank and congratulate our authors for supporting us to make this goal a reality.

In 2019, we will be looking carefully at how to provide better value for authors, maintain efficiency while growing in size, and make sure we remain well-connected with the research community. 

If you want to participate, you can consider screening preprints or joining our advisory board. And, of course, posting your own work.